Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Room 238

One of my favorite conspiracy theories is that the film The Shining is actually Stanley Kubrick's confession to faking the Apollo Moon Landing. Sounds crazy right? Those who believe this point out that Kubrick was working extensively with NASA on 2001 A space odyssey before and during the Moon flights, that he pioneered the use of film screen surrounds in that film that would have been necessary to fake the moon landing, blah, blah, blah...

But, where it gets interesting is when one explores the differences between Stephen King's novel The Shining and Kubrick's film. I don't remember what room number the evil room is in the book, but it's not 238 as it is in the film. 238,000 miles is the approximate distance from the Earth to the Moon. Mild. I know. Wait. Those two creepy twin girls our young hero sees in the hallway on his big wheel? Not in the book. Gemini is both the sign of the twins and the name of the space craft used in the Moon Mission. Meh. I know. This is where it gets better. The kid, the hero? In that scene with the twin ghosts that's not in the book, he's wearing and Apollo 11 sweater. And when Jack is typing "A11 work and no play..." He types "A - the number 1 (not the letter L in smallcase) and another number one. A eleven. As in Apollo 11.

Also, there's a mysterious and impossible window in the manager's office in the middle of the hotel in the beginning of the movie. And Jack Nicholson is reading a Play Girl magazine before that.

So, did Stanley Kubrick fake the Apollo 11 Mission and film The Shining as his confession? You decide....